Monthly Archives: April 2014

Decentralised Energy Delivery: the Business Case

April 2014: On Wednesday 2nd April 2014 the Greater London Authority hosted a workshop focussing on the Business Case and Business Planning for Decentralised Energy projects. The event included an introduction from Matthew Pencharz – Senior Advisor, Environment and Energy (GLA), case studies and an open discussion amongst all attendees. The workshop hosted speakers from the London Borough of Enfield, Westminster City Council, Arup and the GLA. Attendees included energy consultants, engineers and local authorities.

Materials presented by the speakers can be downloaded using the following links:
Peter North, Greater London Authority
Robert Tudway Greater London Authority
Bruce Laidlaw, Arup
Jeff Laidler, London Borough of Enfield
Tim Starley-Grainger, Westminster City Council
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One million Londoners don’t open their energy bills

4 April 2014: Evening Standard report results of a survey commissioned by what appears to be a new collective switching business ThisIsTheBigDeal.com. Results not published on the company’s website, and the numbers of people surveyed not revealed, but the story sets out that “almost a million Londoners do not bother to open their gas and power bills despite being worried about the cost, a damning survey revealed today”. Likely a 1,000 or so people surveyed, so some heroic extrapolation going on here – but issues raised such as consumers getting confused by their bills, and not even attempting to review their energy costs have been similarly identified in earlier studies. It’s not clear from the story if Londoners are better or worse than consumers in other regions.

DECC interestingly undertake a regular ‘Public Attitudes Tracker‘. The February 2014 release says the following (p4):

  • 47% of people were very or fairly worried about paying their energy bills, similar to September 2013 (48%). In December 2012 50% of people were very or fairly worried about paying their energy bills, compared with 45% in September 2012.
  • 32% of people said they will or may switch energy supplier in the next 12 months, unchanged since September 2013 (34%) and December 2012 (35%).
  • Four in ten (42%) of people trusted their energy supplier to inform them of the best tariff for them, similar to March 2013 (46%) and March 2012 (44%), when the question was first asked.
  • Half of people (49%) said they trusted their supplier to provide impartial and accurate advice on energy efficiency measures, similar to March 2013 (51%) and March 2012 (53%), when the question was first asked.

Nothing however on whether consumers understand their energy bill.

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PV storage trialled in Hackney

5 April 2014: The latest Feed in Tariff (FITs) statistics continues to show London’s abysmal progress on installing photovoltaic projects (see story here) – but at least today’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Solar Strategy (PII) highlights that there is some innovative stuff going on with PV in the capital. Not surprisingly the ground-breaking Arcola Theatre is involved (the theatre company with a fuel cell business at the side…) – see case study from strategy copied below.

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Lighting London

April 2014: Interesting LSE Cities event: “With the arrival of LED and ‘smart’ technologies, lighting has become an increasingly important area of interest and concern for planners, architects and designers. Debates around urban illumination are driven by the global narrative of the ‘sustainable city’, but also specific aesthetic motifs, issues around safety and security as well as light pollution. Despite this centrality, light is relatively invisible….” How poetic… and how true. Gotta be worth going to!

Taking place at 10.30am on 24 April – details here.

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